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Miss Marla was frantic. It had to be in her possession, but she had no clue where to even begin looking. In the gig folders? Or the curriculum/ensemble books? Or had she left it in one of her briefcases? In moments like these, Marla felt totally justified in being a pack rat and never, ever throwing anything away! She felt there was no argument that could justify tossing anything, especially if that item might one day be important in an entirely different context.

Now the formidably anticipated day had come; Marla didn’t know whether to be proud of her astute prediction or crushed by the shameful frustration that, after so many years, she’d not found an even marginally sufficient organization style that accommodated the chronicling and locating of her important ideas, documents, songs, and writings! Even when she’d attempted to put her life in order, she’d file something and then forget where she’d put it! Here she was again in her fourth walk-through of the third bedroom full of boxes, not filed but piled.

You had a beautiful poem you wrote once, Ms. Thing, and it kept you inspired to stay organized for many years! What the hell???

Marla remembered her housekeeping parable, “Zella’s Housecleaning,” all the time but couldn’t remember where she’d even stored that! Now she was looking for her arrangement of a song she’d written thirty years ago that fit the gig she had coming up so perfectly! She’d even recorded it in one of her early gigs. However, she couldn’t find the cassette tape it was recorded on. Even if she found the cassette, where could she find a tape player anymore to play the darn thing on?

“Technology, my ass!” murmured Marla in her “office” as she adjusted her readers to decipher the scribbled titles on the cases, irritated that she didn’t have enough light in this room to do anything even remotely pertaining to finding something important.

“Why, I can’t even see anything in this room!!” she exclaimed.

This was one of your favorite songs to do live, and now you can’t even find the damned thing! Even when you find it, how’re you gonna listen to it? Where are you going to find a cassette player, for Chrissake!? You only remember the first line.

“Damn technology!” Marla growled.

She went to the piano and played the first few chords. She could remember the progressions and the form of the song, but the lyrics were deep in her memory, laughing at her, she felt.

“Hmmm, was it ‘Don’t Waste My Time!’? Hmmmmm…” she hummed bluesily.

She seemed to remember that the song was an edict slamming the “BS” that so many people engage in, procrastinating with their duties and responsibilities, going through whole days producing nothing, which Marla had always felt that most people did on the average. With eyes wide open and minds closed, most people were, in Marla’s assessment, inwardly, maybe even subconsciously, committed to mediocrity and sub-par performance packaged in excuses and empty rhetoric. The bar was always lower than was necessary for the best to excel. No one wanted to push hard, stretch, extend, gamble their essence on any idea or purpose, fearful of failure or of not receiving the credit commensurate with their effort.

See? This is how you get distracted! Going off on tangents and rambling until you forget what the hell you were thinking about in the first place! OH!

‘I Takes My Time’! That’s the title! Yeah! Ok, now I can really look for it! Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find it in the first place!”

Marla was slightly irritated that she thought she’d seen “I Takes My Time” in one of the folders a day or two before. ” Yes, actually she had been looking, unconsciously maybe, for a few weeks! There’d be a rushed situation in the office, everyone stressing and rip-roaring around to get a task done, and Marla would start humming this tune and finally get home to go through her old music to see what was in the literal piles of charts. There were stacks of folders of charts in every room though. She’d never invested in a file cabinet, though there was one in her office at the school, also in real need of order but a bit better. At least Marla could lock the damn thing and only open it when she was absolutely sure of where she’d put something. “Filed” was not exactly what she called it, though there were some pieces which were alphabetized. Mostly she resisted the label of “hoarder” and made the best of her memory and the instinct she had for remembering where a piece was the last time she’d used it. Well, “I Takes My time” was not going to whistle from the stack of papers it was hiding in, so Marla resignedly decided to put a little thought into the last known sighting of the campy ditty.

Maybe if you try to think of what you were experiencing when the song came to you. It was in the days of working with Chris in the transition from the Lori and Roger collaboration. You were stressed one day, thinking about an upcoming gig that was wigging you out ‘cause you didn’t think you’d learned the songs well enough. Damn! Seems you’d have been cured of that after all these years! But the stress of thinking how down-to-the-wire this gig was, had incited you to sit down and write the lyric.

“Don’t go rushing me through my chores! Ain’t no use in scaramooshing through my day…duh,duh,duh,duh, I Takes My Time…. “

Then the bridge went:

“Now you can wear your nerves right down to a frazzle, looking for the next hoop to jump through,

But how you gonna make a little razzle-dazzle, when all you are is stressed and waitin’, anxiously anticipatin’?…”

That last line’s not exactly right, but it’s a start at least!

As Marla walked into the living room to get her cell phone recharger, she spied a distracting piece of paper out of the corner of her eye. Sticking out of a huge dusty folder of notes, grades, and event programs from over the twenty or so years she’d been at the institution was the yellow-colored legal pad she’d used to write the lyrics to the song.

“Oh, my GOD!” Marla shouted, delighted. She then remembered the last time she’d sung the number. For her first performance at the school, she’d pulled this song out to sing for the introductory department mini-concert. She’d used “I Takes My Time” to telegraph to her new colleagues that she wasn’t one to be peer-pressured or stressed into doing anything! It was funny and yet just honest and candid enough that they ought to get the message, she’d thought.

“And it seemed to have worked over the years!” Marla mused, chuckling.

With a sigh of relief, Marla, totally aware that her organizational skills were still pitifully in need of development, thought, “You can never, ever throw anything away, my dear. Who knows what could turn out not to be trash? Most things you’ve filed away are destined to be treasures if you live long enough. How ‘bout hiring someone to come over and assist you in at least alphabetizing your music!?”

Anyway, Marla, not a total hoarder – yet – was holding on to most things, whether trash or treasure!

Our new songbook comes out in print on July 14! From the Foreword: “Back in the early ’90’s, when my musical direction felt like a riddle to me, I met Lori Mechem and her wonderful husband and musical partner, Roger Spencer. We began swapping ideas and writing together and soon grew to know and love each other. Since those early days, we’ve felt the need to chronicle our diary of songwriting – and, finally, here it is. I hope you truly enjoy our stories of the need for – and delight in – love!” –Donna McElroy

Early in our careers in Nashville, Vicki Hampton and I were fortunate to sing a lot of backup sessions with Lea Jane Berinati, a numbers chart-writing, AFTRA-contracting DYNAMO! She would come in maybe an hour before the rest of us and write “charts” on notebook paper, assigning parts to us in the number system. She would always want to be on the bottom part, and Vicki and I would fight over which of us would take the top part. Some of the conflict was because, not having warmed up, the range of the notes would initially intimidate us. Most of the time we both just liked to sing that inner harmony, the middle note, that would hold the other parts fast and require the top singer to be on point and the bottom singer to keep great intonation, which Lea Jane definitely did.

There were others singers like the Cherry Sisters, whom I would sometimes sub for if one of them were double-booked. These women were the cream of the Nashville background-singing crop. Also, I cannot forget Yvonne Hodges, who always took the top part and was on point about absolutely everything! She was punctual, charming, and fast to learn and memorize. She was also a fellow Fiskite, a classically trained soprano, and an inspiration; Yvonne showed me that I could use my classical training to sing in any genre I chose! These are a few of the great singers who got me to start seriously considering my own professional singing and musicianship.

Vicki and I were part of many singing groups in church and in school all our lives. Those early years of lots of musical experiences helped to develop lots of versatility, and gave us the ability to sing any part with any combination of singers! The prospect of continuing with this really fun activity as a job for life was not much more than big dreams of fame, fortune, and success in the minds of two young Kentucky girls. Little did we know, the dreams would become reality, and one day we’d be seasoned professional vocalists in the entertainment industry, touring, session singing, teaching, arranging, writing, being sought for our talent – yes, divas!

In my days teaching at Berklee, being part of the famous YOTEAM, I irritated great arrangers. In the midst of the orchestra/big band rehearsal, I would hear a note played by an instrument in the mix of the performance of some chart and say to the player, “You should have an Ab on that chord, not A!” In the denseness of the chart, I would hear that one note.

Interestingly though, I would always have to ask what “Key” we were in. (Which is a whole ‘nother essay, and we ain’t got time!) If I knew what key the chart was in, I could go directly to that chord/note in my mind, identify it, and tell the player what to replace it with. It was a not-so-slight irritation to my co-workers, both student and faculty, but they grew to realize that I was right whenever I heard something “off” and decided I had better be heeded. It was through this ear training skill that I inadvertently also learned how to spell out chords.

I found that it was not enough just to know the note to correct. The note doesn’t sit there by itself. It has a role, or membership, or position in the harmonic structure of the song, therefore it has to be correctly spelled out in the harmonic arrangement of the chart. Sometimes I would say to the horn player, “that note is a G not G#.” Then my colleague Ken would spell the chord out for the player to reiterate the quality of the chord and, therefore, the importance of that note’s membership in it. Through listening to Ken and Tom and Richard and Winston and Alonzo and all the other faculty and student arrangers speak in the language of the harmonist, the mind of the arranger, I was able over the years to merge two concepts: the horizontality of the melody and the verticality of the chords written to compliment, even explain or enhance, the nature of the melody.

I have always hated graphs and charts, so when I see teachers at the blackboard “analyzing” the harmonic structures of exercises or assigning certain harmonic progressions to meet a theoretical format, my mind goes to another planet and has a margarita. Then a new amazing artist comes along – still today, and just like Bird or Waller – to toss out that theoretical bung and give us a new innovative concept of how to voice or express or utilize the same twelve half steps!

Sometimes people think I have perfect pitch, and I get a kick out of that. What I have, however, is a kind of relative pitch. I may or may not be able to tell exactly what a tone is, but once I know what it is, I can tell you anything else about it, i.e., its membership in the chord being played, or the interval between it and the note before and after it, and its number or solfege name, assuming there is a tonic reference implied in the piece.

So how I think about a song and its performances, whether live or recorded, has evolved to be a multi-dimensional holographic picture of it as a cosmic deposit in the universe of sound. Hey! That’s kinda Herbie Hancock-y! I gotta remember that! A multi-dimensional holographic picture. A cosmic deposit in the universe of sound. That’s kinda cool!

-Songs I’d like to learn
-Songs I have charts to
-Songs I need to transpose
-Foreign language selections
-Wardrobe ideas
-Cities I’d like to travel to
-Political figures I’d like to endorse with my singing
-Products I’d like to endorse
-Hotels and casinos I’d like to perform at
-Artists I’d like to do a duet with
(If they asked me, I could write a book…)

My Final Words

Now, as I end my Vocal Coach Residency, can I just say something here about how much I love to sing?

If you haven’t picked up on that fact yet, let me state my dream has always been to sing and share my stories with people all over the world.

I never cared what race or class or religion or culture or financial, educational, or medical state people were in when I shared with them.

In fact, the first things I want to know about my listeners is who they are; then I go into my background, my resume, my memory, even sometimes the memories of my ancestors, and find basic truths for us all.

Sometimes your interested presence and expression of caring is music to people’s ears!

I thought it would be a great idea to share what great teachers have taught me. These are the insights that lie behind any vocalist maintaining outstanding ethics and principles:

* Preparation. Warming-up, personal hygiene, and punctuality go a long way to signal to your co-workers and your client that you have a professional and dependable work ethic.

* Flexibility. Understand your role(s) in the overall goal of a project, even if the project is your own. The performance of the song, whether recorded or live, is just the result of all the comprehensive preparation for it, including its usage and destination.

* Change. Be willing to not only listen but to actually hear and carry out changes and suggestions according to the input of others.

* Faith. Always believe that you are supposed do this job and are there only because the client thinks so too.

* Journey. Try not to get preoccupied with any single project you’re included in; each experience is on the way to the next experience and never the ultimate destination.

Be Dedicated.

Dedication to doing the job well and building a lasting working relationship with the client should be a long-term goal.

With this level of dedication, your career will be filled with respect and esteem from producers, co-workers, and artists who share your passion for excellence, and your resume will be extraordinary!

Though my singing has been largely professional, all the “tips” I have for healthy, professional, long-lasting singing were ingrained in me in my formative years—in elementary, junior high or secondary school, and high school, and through my training as a lyric soprano in college (Fisk University,’77).

In other words, in my life, great teachers have taught me and helped me to maintain outstanding ethics and principles, and for this I am truly grateful.

I heard a radio interview yesterday with Marni Nixon, a singer who made her entire career from doing the singing for the lead actresses in many of the iconic films of the twentieth century.

When Ms. Nixon got started doing her work there were so many wonderful composers and lyricists to collaborate with, it must have seemed like a dream.

Singing the melodies of Richard Rogers and Leonard Bernstein!

Hmmm, delicious work and, sadly, a lost art form.

Keep Up Your Quest

We singers are selling our voices short if we don’t go searching for those great show tunes, learn the melodies, the lyrics (some lyricists like Cole Porter wrote volumes of extra lyrics!), and build our vocal strength by actually singing.

Not to mention building our repertoire and personal range, learning which keys we sing in best and learning how to transpose these beautiful old gems into our own keys.

What a world a singer can open up for herself if she can step away from the Karaoke version and arrange her own version of a great venerable piece of musical history!

Then add a lick or a run, but know what you’re licking from and where you’re running to!

The staccato arrangement of today’s vocals is meant to accommodate the choreography that’s dominating the popular art form.

Though I simply adore Beyonce for her versatility, style, and work ethic, it does seem that she breathes in the middle of syllables and embellishments.

Now, the way she’s kickin’ it, Beyonce has a reason for needing that extra breath –what’s your excuse?

It’s so important to move onto your next song free of the past and fully ready for what is to come.

A Tactic to Try

Here’s a tactic I’ve developed over the years to help me make a full transition from one song to the next.

Sometimes when I’ve just finished singing a song, I get a little light-headed, as though I’m out of my own body, and watch the whole room from the perspective of the audience, the band, the sound engineer, the waitresses and bartenders, etc.

I’ve gotten used to doing this whether the song went well or terribly, just getting a vibe from the room as to a general atmosphere.

Most of the time the mistake I made was noticed by no one but me or the keyboard player, or possibly the songwriter if they’re present; in other words, the whole gig didn’t fall apart because of that misbegotten phrase.

I remind myself that there’s really nothing I can do about the previous song, and I certainly don’t have to let the rest of my show suffer just because of any lapses in concentration.

I’ve also learned at the end of the gig to accept any and all compliments with grace and a smile (I’ve practiced this in the mirror!!!), and not correct the audience members.

What they don’t know won’t hurt anybody.

This kind of thinking has been my savior, this transitioning away from what I just sang. NEXT!

Redefining Excellence

It’s only over time, after many successful gigs filled with great and grim outcomes, that I’ve come to understand excellence.

Excellence is not a single moment of performance success, but the culmination over one’s life and career of successful performance tactics that work to keep you focused—focused on the musical life you want to live and to communicate with others.

So keep on blazing through every song and performance experience.

And try to have a grand and glorious time no matter what mistakes were made.